Unit 6.2 Finding Chemicals in
Unexpected Places
The chemistry of food and of the human body is discussed.
Ways of teaching the "chemistry of biology" are
presented.
Video program cues: 5:45-14:10

Chemistry is in everything

Students ideas

"We see all sorts of things happening
in life, like right now, when were breathing, thats
chemistry there. Also, everything we touch, everything we
see, all those particles that we ought to know what they
are everything here is chemistry, just looking."

"Because most of the students in class
came recently from a biology class, we also try to begin
chemistry by relating to the things that they already know."

Dr. Leslie Pierce
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia

"If you can take what you are doing in a first year
chemistry course and relate it back to what they did in
biology  they talked about the chemistry of life,
chemicals in the cell, the basic biochemical reactions on
the cellular level. If the chemistry teachers make themselves
familiar with what the kids did in the course before theirs,
they can find all sorts of things to talk about. What you
introduce in chemistry relates a lot to chemistry of life."

Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia

"Im at a school of the performing arts, where everybody
is concerned about appearance. The food that you put in
is all chemicals. Everything has its caloric value. So keeping
a journal of what you put in and how much energy you are
expending everyday, and then weighing yourself everyday,
relates the chemistry of what you eat and the energetics
of what you do to your weight and to your appearance, which
for most of the kids where I teach, is the most important
thing in their life."

Dr. Michael Clarke
Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Washington, DC

"I think when you get into equilibrium, you can always
relate to things from biology and physiological systems.
Maintaining a pH balance in your blood, and why thats
important, or why you run and get cramps."

Caryn Galatis
Thomas Edison High School, Virginia

"Sometimes after we are done with equilibrium, and
looking at LeChatalies principle and how the addition
of one thing shifts the equilibrium, and you can shift it
back and forth, I try to bring in the fact that there is
an equilibrium within the body. This exists between different
sorts of reactions, and if you start taking drugs you can
shift these reactions in ways that could injure you permanently.
We really are all chemists, without even thinking about
it, we run millions of reactions and they must be maintained
at equilibrium."

Irene Walsh
St. Andrews Episcopal School, Maryland

"We started talking about what happens if a child goes
under the sink and gets into chemicals. From that point
of departure I found a whole category of students who are
not usually interested in chemistry suddenly sitting up,
and I talked to them afterwards about being responsible
for their brothers and sisters at home. They knew of somebody
whose child had been poisoned. And when it suddenly sunk
in, why you cannot dilute chemicals in a childs belly
those students are pulling As in acids and bases because
it was taken to a whole level for them. Its what they
came in with that takes the direction for me, not what I
come with."

Site contains demonstrations and laboratories assembled in a short time with a limited number of solutions to illustrate a specific point. Click on Iron in Cereal "Experiment" to see
QuickTime movies of this experiment.